Aladdin’s e Cycle ™, Design Ideas’ EcoGen ™ and Trendcites’ Green Scale ™….the conversation continues.

It’s become clearer to me over the last year that people need some sort of scale that represents the dialog surrounding the production of environmentally friendly products, buildings, businesses. The facts are muddy given the degrees by which a company or the products one produces or that we as consumers purchase are considered environmentally friendly.
While this scale is by no means exhaustive, it is my attempt at trying to clarify those degrees or at least create the debate surrounding it. In other words, it’s a beginning, albeit a primitive one. Until the Environmental Protection Agency creates certification not unlike what the Food and Drug Administration does for what we ingest, we will have to do our own monitoring.
Consumers and people in industry continue to speak about Greenwashing….marketing that says a product or service is green but isn’t really. Maybe it takes more energy to create that product so negates it’s greeness, or the product isn’t based on any green properties per se only that it is to be kept for a long time (not disposable in other words such as bespoke tailoring or even haute couture), so where or how to judge the eco friendliness of your choices? The Green Scale is meant to create debate and help create better definitions associated with our progress. And, progress, not perfection, is what we are looking for.
Aladdin has a proprietary manufacturing process called e Cycle ™ which takes product originally headed for landfills, i.e., cottage cheese containers, yogurt containers, dip tubs and so on, breaks it down then uses it along with its recycled plastic to create its mugs and travel mugs which are also recyclable wherever plastic water bottles can be recyled. So, some percentage of post consumer industrial waste is now the buzz phrase. In Aladdin’s case it is 25% post industrial consumer waste and 75% recycled product that makes up their BPA free water bottle, mugs, and travel mugs.
In the case of Design Ideas’ EcoGen, their proprietary technology that has created plastic that looks and acts and feels (even tastes like) plastic but is in fact biodegradeable in composts so comes even closer to being perfect, don’t ya think? Except one must basically plant it or put it in soil for the proper bacteria to come together before it can break down. Tossed into a landfill, Eco Gen’s product won’t break down and there’s the rub.
But, to my knowledge, no one is doing that technology.
Bed Bath Beyond and Container Store both carry Eco Gen’s bath products. This season Eco Gen added onto to this product line with desktop product. And while this is a wonderful move, another equally important one is the issue of price. Eco Gen says their product pricing is being reduced by some 30%. The company spokesman didn’t say where that reduction was coming from, but one can guess…..economies of scale are being achieved but also in general prices coming down wherever they are getting it produced. This helps. Once more of that happens then the larger plastic guys whose product is more commodity and mostly based on price can also take advantage of the technology. (That green will just become a deeper color green….it may still be a number 9, but it’s a stronger color of green, right?).
Henry Poole & Co. 2007 ForbesTraveler.com “London’s Bespoke Tailors.”
And then there are the conversations that took place in the Conference on Sustainability in India for the fashion industry. Suzy Menkes interviewed Stella McCartney who is a leader in the fashion industry on living and producing environmentally conscious products (she uses no real leather or furs and uses organic cotton), also made reference to bespoke tailoring like what one finds on Seville Row in London. Something someone keeps for 10 years or more, (haute couture belongs in this bracket as well depending on the designer, I think). With the continuing furor over disposable fashion created cheaply with cheap fabrics and even cheaper (some think sweat shops, and who really knows?) labor purchasing better quality goods that just last longer and aren’t meant to be replaced must be considered as a serious part of the equation (green scale ™). Made once, kept for 10-15 years, perhaps put into Good Will and becomes part of someone else’s wardrobe for maybe another 4 years suggests another type of sustainability.
I can not engage in this conversation without bringing up China and the energy it is taking to bring goods in from China. The supply chain to me is where much of the focus needs to go (and on packaging) to help create more enviromentally friendly businesses and products. It’s as much a part of the Green Scale ™ as the creation of products that break down in composts or are recycled even with post consumer waste. We can’t ignore China as a resource obviously but we can use more local manufacturers or craftsmen to make our product…..this too has to be placed on the Green Scale ™, but where? On it’s own? As part of a company’s basket of green practices? Nau, Inc. might have been a 10 on this Green Scale ™, but they filed. Granted they were purchased, and thankfully continue today, however, their story is one that just indicates how expensive perfection is and how and why we can’t get their immediately. Progress not perfection.
And so, the conversation continues.
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Sarut Group (pronounced sa roo) who owns the Pylone Stores, (pronounced pee lone) four of them in Manhattan (Grand Central pictured top) but with a 





I have a confession to make. I am a pile person…the sort of person who can magically pull that precise piece of paper from an unsuspecting pile and who, when all piles have been organized and filed, can’t find anything. Don’t ask me about this skill. It remains a mystery to me. And while I also confess to being pleased at how my work style still manages to pull everything together, I do ponder dreamily of the paperless office.